Spiralize – A Verb Whether We Like It Or Not

I often feel like I own every kitchen toy possible. Then I get another catalog in the mail or see an ad on the internet. My latest acquisition is a spiralizer. Dreadful if completely accurate name.

It has 3 different blades so you get 3 different widths of spirals and you can use it on a wide variety of fruits and vegetables (zucchini, onion, potato, pears, apples, carrots, beets). Pretty much if you can stick it onto the machine, you can probably makes spirals. Before I bought it I checked out several books from the library to see what kinds of dishes could be prepared – ended up purchasing two cookbooks as well (and yes, I did get rid of two old cookbooks when the new ones arrived).

Of course, the day I had time to mess with it, I didn’t want to go shopping so I just made up a recipe using ingredients I already had in the house.

Saute onions in butter until translucent in oven-proof skillet. Add potatoes and cook for 8-10 minutes until they get soft. Add beans, tomatoes, taco sauce and spicing to taste. Top w/ cheese and heat in 350° F oven for about 15 minutes until cheese gets nice and melty.

YA loved it. Good recipe for a cold, rainy weekend even if I feel badly for participating in “verbing”!

68 thoughts on “Spiralize – A Verb Whether We Like It Or Not”

We got a spiralizer a couple of years ago and use it mostly to transform zucchini into faux spaghetti. At Robin’s preference, we hardly ever have real spaghetti anymore. I suppose zucchini noodles are healthier and less caloric, but I miss the real thing. Like most ersatz foodstuffs, it takes work and self deception to convince yourself that they are a worthy substitute. I suppose if I had never had pasta I would think they were pretty good.

Hans bought me a food processor thirty years ago as a gift. I remember thinking, oh great, another appliance to collect dust. It came with a three hour class from Cooks of Crocus Hill on how to get the most use out of it. I went to the class, and I was impressed. It’s probably the most used kitchen tool I own (not counting pots, pans and knives), love it. I’ve worn out and replaced two work bowls. I’d recommend investing in one.

I still can’t believe that my oven and its electronics are back in action, but they are!

I must have missed a chapter of the stove story. Today’s post suggests your oven now works. Did a repair person work on it? If not, this is another example of my mother’s way of curing mechanical objects that went on the fritz. She would put them aside saying that they needed a little time to recover. Days later she would turn on the broken implement to see whether it had “fixed itself.” Often, it had.

Don’t know what happened, Bill, but the repairman from the store did some testing with his instruments and arrived at a $529.95 repair bill. I wanted to think about that, and only paid him for the $89.95 “trip” charge. None of the pre-programmed buttons worked, I couldn’t even turn the oven on. As soon as I touched the “start” button it cancelled whatever I wanted it to do, and gave me an error message. It was based on that error message that the repair tech diagnosed the problem as a dead motherboard.

We paid $1,860.00 for that stove in January of 2010. It’s a dual fuel, which apparently accounts for the high price, and I was completely flabbergasted that a less than eight year old stove was now essentially worthless. The gas burners worked fine, but the oven was completely useless.

So I’ve been researching stoves, and have been dragging my heels making a decision. I looked at that beautiful stove and basically could not reconcile myself to the fact that it was now just a piece of junk.

Last night, out of habit, I programmed the timer to 15 minutes, and as the minutes were ticking away it occurred to me that the timer was working again, it hadn’t been when I called for the repair tech. I then tested the oven, and it works too. Everything seems back to normal. Perhaps it’s time to sign up for appliance insurance through out local utility company!

Bill’s comment reminds me that I know exactly one way to fix computer problems. When the thing isn’t behaving, turn it off and then turn it on again. Most of the time it will start working properly after a reboot or restart. I didn’t learn this trick from my mother but from the Geek Squad.

Added a picture above. Sorry I was in a loud crazy place this morning and didn’t really have enough time to think through that I was writing something that maybe none of you had any idea what I was talking about. Not the first time. Won’t be the last time.

Since potatoes—a large proportion of potatoes—are not usually an ingredient in chili, I think I would hesitate to call the above recipe chili. It does look good though. Maybe I would name them “Chilied Potatoes”. (See what I did there? I made an adjective out of a noun.)
Not content with spiralizing, now the Spiralites are chiliing.

I’m currently spiralizing toward hypothermia. I just came downstairs and the house is literally 35 degrees because the lakeside door blew open during the night. Just walking across the tile floor made my feet ache from the cold. Typing on this keyboard is freezing my fingers even though I’m under a heavy blanket with a space heater aimed at me. I just asked Siri what the wind chill temp it is here. It’s 2 degrees! I feel like one of those idiots who dives into the lake water after the lake freezes over. BRRRRRR

I dislike a particular use of the verb “grow” that seems inoffensive. My problem is using the verb “grow” in place of a transitive verb implying agency. “I will grow your happiness.” No . . . you can’t “grow” something that is a quality of life for someone else. You might “increase” or “enhance” someone else’s happiness, but you can’t “grow” it for them.

My dislike seems petty, but there it is. And it makes me an enemy of much business management prose.

There are some verbings I grow rather fond of. One is baseball-related; on the Twins radio broadcasts Dan Gladden will occasionally describe a dropped fly ball by saying “He nonchalanted it,” meaning the player thought it was going to be an easy play and then completely blew it. It’s a verbing that seems to serve a purpose. It describes the play efficiently in three words.

I’m having a lot of trouble with the word “verbing” as I’m writing this – autocorrect keeps suggesting I mean “verging” or “verbena”.